It took a couple of shaky moments with the city, but residents of the Heart of Lubbock neighborhood are beginning to assert some ownership over the future of Stumpy Hamilton Park, one of two parks in the community.

The turnout was small, 19 people, for landscape architect Jason Hodges’ inventory and assessment of the park.

And there wasn’t a lot of discussion, other than some concern from residents about whether a proposal that surfaced earlier this year to make a portion of the park an off-leash dog park would be revived.

The park is at Avenue X and 22nd Street.

Hodges, who with his wife Julie lives in the neighborhood and calls himself a regular user of the park, explained the short-term goal was in finding out what the residents want and developing options that could be proposed to city officials for consideration in the 2014 budget cycle.

The couple own Prairie Workshop, a landscape architecture and heritage planning firm in Lubbock.

The Hodges urged people to seek out their neighbors’ thoughts on what could be done with the park.

Barbara Brannon, the neighborhood association president, said two incidents — a now-abandoned idea at City Hall to make part of the park an off-leash dog park, and the city’s removal of baseball field equipment earlier this year — prompted the association to take a look at the park in terms of neighborhood concerns.

City recreation officials said the backstop and fences were dismantled because the equipment was falling into disrepair, and with the opening of a new baseball complex, there was no contract for teams to practice at Stumpy Hamilton, Brannon said.

Hodges worked with Melanie Jackson, a student intern from the Oglalla Commons community internship program, to develop a three-dimensional model of the park’s grade and to inventory the vegetation and amenities.

The landscape architect said the park would generally be considered a “turf and tree” site, with plenty of grass and a variety of canopy trees — trees that branch out well above the ground — of numerous species.

Because of the kind of shade trees involved, Hodges said, “it’s a safe space during the day and at night, because you can see through the park.”

Like several other Lubbock parks, he said, the park is a converted playa lake, below the earthen grade of the neighborhood.

And, he noted, some of the improvements that were put in some 40 years ago wouldn’t pass muster with current codes.

“There is only one staircase in the park,” Hodges said, which makes access difficult for the elderly, small children, the disabled, and visually impaired.

And, he said, there’s no record of any major capital expenses on the park since the 1970s.

To comment on this story:

walt.nett@lubbockonline.com

• 766-8744

leesha.faulkner@lubbockonline.com

• 766-8706

A starting view

Oglalla Commons intern Melanie Jackson wrote a blog about what she did in initial research on Stumpy Hamilton Park.